Amber Abrams is a Carnegie/DEAL research fellow at Future Water Institute at the University of Cape Town. Her work here focuses on social sciences and human health around water, often through engaged, participatory and arts-based methods. During her PhD (University of Kent), Amber focused the wellbeing of South African peoples living on the boundaries of protected areas, which combined her interests in public health, and medical/environmental anthropology with studies in conservation and ecology.
Before this, Amber worked at the South African Medical Research Council managing the WHO-affiliated Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (www.PACTR.org) from 2009 to 2012.
She was also positioned as a Senior Scientist (part-time consultant, SACC and Environment and Health Unit) in 2012, where she presented on a range of projects from traditional healing, to clinical guidelines and ethics. Prior to that, Amber completed her undergraduate degree at Barnard College (Columbia University) followed by her masters in medical anthropology (UCT) .
Her research covers a variety of topics, including: exploring water uses and users perspectives in the Table Mountain National Park area, developing a water museum, researching social aspects of resource recovery from waste-water, and of stormwater interventions in urban environments, exploring health vulnerability in the context of extreme weather events, and a range of public health and social engagement projects focused on water quality/toxicity that make use of arts-based approaches. While her current work primarily focuses on research, she loves teaching, especially research methods courses and creating new spaces for learning in collaboration with others; especially efforts that can disrupt the status quo when it comes to notions of knowledge holders and expertise.
